


Since Now

by HazelDomain



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Implied Character Death, Implied Destiel - Freeform, M/M, Reminiscing, Scars, very short fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-01
Updated: 2020-09-01
Packaged: 2021-03-06 23:08:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 597
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26236906
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HazelDomain/pseuds/HazelDomain
Summary: On the road, time passes in an unconnected succession of 'now's.
Relationships: Castiel/Dean Winchester
Comments: 14
Kudos: 58





	Since Now

The thing is, time doesn’t really  _ pass _ when you live on the road. 

It goes by, obviously, most of the time. You figure your target de-kidneys a victim once every six months, and that’s how you have a vague, disconnected kind of awareness that it’s August. Sometimes the liquor store’s closed and you know it’s a Sunday. You stop at some diner and the day of the week is written on the Specials board. (“Pig in a Poke!” Dean always wants to announce, but the first time he did it Sam got this wild look in his eye and Dean’s never quite sure the Eternity of Tuesdays has passed firmly into joke territory, so he holds off.) 

But being  _ aware _ of time isn’t the same as the feeling of time really  _ passing.  _ Time  _ passed _ when he lived with Lisa, the back of his mind always keeping track of weekly trash pickup, Saturday soccer games, TGI Fridays and the good natured grumbling of Monday mornings. Days clearly separated, in a way that tends to get lost when a midnight grave desecration has you looking for breakfast at 4PM. When a bad hunt ends with a bender, duration measured only by how much alcohol they still had on hand. 

Regular days turning into regular weeks, ostensibly measured in days of the month and months of the year, but always with the undercurrent of time passed  _ since Sam.  _ Not on purpose. But the knowledge was always there. 

But time doesn’t pass on the road, which is how Dean finds himself in some fiberglass motel shower, staring at a white line across the side of his palm and thinking ‘ _ Cas hasn’t healed me up in a while.’ _

He’d crawled out of hell re-hymenated and without so much as a callous, and for a while he just  _ stayed _ that way. It seemed like every couple of months, Cas was having to plug some gaping hole in his lungs, or summon up a gallon of missing blood from heaven knows where (heh) and while he was at it, he just sorta…. Fixed the little shit, too. 

Dean hadn’t noticed, until he did. And he considered being offended, considered explaining the sentimental value of accumulated battle scars, but somehow he never got around to telling Cas off for healing him  _ too well.  _ And then, well, then at some point, apparently, he just got used to not having them. 

Water dripped onto the floor as Dean ran the pad of his thumb across the scar. It was a scar, too. Some people refer to any laceration as a ‘scar’ but scratches heal. Whatever made this, it would have been sharp, and forceful. Maybe coulda used stitches but when you get hurt as often as Dean does, at a certain point your injuries start getting sorted into lethal and nonlethal and fussed over accordingly. This one wouldn’t have registered-  _ didn’t _ register. He didn’t notice when it happened, didn’t pay attention as the scab narrowed and lightened and disappeared. The mark faded from red to pink to white, because time went by, but you didn’t  _ think _ about it when it happened like that. You didn’t measure the  _ passage _ of time by the gradual changes in a random wound. 

Dean held his hands up, letting the water run from palms to wrists, over his forearms and onto his hips. Looking for them, the little marks were obvious- pink scratches and black scabs, old bruises yellow-green in dim light. A calendar of mistakes, marking how long it’d been since Cas healed him. 

Since Cas. 

Turns out, time passes everywhere. 


End file.
